FOCHT, Benjamin Kurtz, a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in New Bloomfield, Perry
County, Pa., March 12, 1863; attended the public schools, Bucknell University,
Lewisburg, Pa., Pennsylvania State College at State College, and Susquehanna
University, Selinsgrove, Pa.; established the Lewisburg (Pa.) Saturday News in
1881, serving as editor and publisher until his death; delegate to the
Republican State convention in 1889; served as an officer of the National Guard
of Pennsylvania; member of the State house of representatives 1893-1897; served
in the State senate 1901-1905; water supply commissioner of Pennsylvania
1912-1914; elected as a Republican to the Sixtieth, Sixty-first, and
Sixty-second Congresses (March 4, 1907-March 3, 1913); unsuccessful candidate
for reelection in 1912 to the Sixty-third Congress; elected to the Sixty-fourth
and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1915-March 3, 1923); chairman,
Committee on War Claims (Sixty-sixth Congress), Committee on District of
Columbia (Sixty-seventh Congress); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in
1922 to the Sixty-eighth Congress and for nomination in 1924, 1926, 1928, and
1930, and also in 1932 for the unexpired term of Edward M. Beers in the
Seventy-second Congress; resumed business activities in Lewisburg, Pa.; served
as deputy secretary of the Commonwealth in 1928 and 1929; elected to the
Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, and Seventy-fifth Congresses and served from
March 4, 1933, until his death in Washington, D.C., March 27, 1937; interment
in Lewisburg Cemetery, Lewisburg, Pa.